CLEVELAND, Ohio — The heart of rock and roll may be in Cleveland, but Lou Reed came for a liver.

The Cleveland Clinic confirmed Tuesday that the 71-year-old rock legend had a liver transplant there early last month.

Privacy regulations did not permit confirmation of the operation until Reed and his family approved it this week, a spokeswoman said.

"I would like to thank the Cleveland Clinic and all of you around the world who have lifted me with prayer and wishes of love," Reed said in a statement posted on his website. "Your support has buoyed me forever and I am deeply grateful. I am also really up and strong. Thanks to your spirit."

He called himself "a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry" who is "bigger and stronger than ever."

His wife, performance artist Laurie Anderson, first disclosed the transplant in an interview with the Times of London newspaper published June 1.

But some confusion surrounded the story when the operation was reported to have been at the "Mayo Clinic in Cleveland." Neither the Cleveland Clinic nor the Mayo Clinic — based in Rochester, Minn. — could comment.

Reed, a founding member of the Velvet Underground, was inducted with the group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. His songs include "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Heroin." He overcame addiction after years of drug use and has suffered from hepatitis.

"It's as serious as it gets," Anderson said about the transplant in the Times interview. "He was dying. You don't get it for fun."

She said that Reed had the surgery in Cleveland instead of New York, where they live, "because the hospitals here are completely dysfunctional.

"Fortunately we can outsource like corporations. It's medical tourism. The Cleveland Clinic is massive. They have the best results for heart, liver and kidney transplants. Whenever I get discouraged about how stupid technology is and how greedy and stupid Americans are, I go to the Cleveland Clinic because the people there are genuinely very kind and very smart."

Anderson later posted a statement that she was "not talking about his physical condition" when she said in the interview that she doubted Reed will "ever totally recover from this."

"Lou is in the best physical shape in years — strong and energetic," she said. "He has a wonderful new life now."

She said he was "already working and doing t'ai chi."

The Clinic, which did 143 liver transplants last year, has one of the the largest transplant programs in the nation.